Former Rocky Flats workers John Barton, left, and Jerry Harden holds a sign during an instructional meeting for former Rocky Flats workers to ask questions about health claims at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union building in Denver on Feb. 19 2014.

Former Rocky Flats Plant workers and their survivors have formed a citizens’ advisory board to monitor the federal compensation program for employees stricken with job-related illnesses.

Officials from the U.S. energy and labor departments and the National Institute of Safety and Health held public meetings in Denver Wednesday and Thursday to explain new benefits for former plant workers. To be eligible, they must have certain cancers now presumed to be caused by exposure to radiation or other toxins at Rocky Flats, where they manufactured plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons stockpiled during the Cold War era.

Representatives of the Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups announced Thursday creation of an 11-member, all-volunteer board. It will oversee how claims are handled and ensure “transparency and accountability” of the Labor Department’s Division of Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation , created in 2000.

Members of the workers’ group said the Government Accountability Office in 2010 and the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine in 2012 both recommended an advisory board. However, legislation to create a board stalled in Congress.

“We’re in communication with them on a regular basis anyway. We don’t know what further effect this will have,” said the compensation program’s director, Rachel Leiton.

Board spokeswoman Terrie Barrie said the new board will begin the oversight process by holding meetings in the next few months to gather information about the experiences of workers filing claims.

The Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it will pay $4.5 million to state, local and tribal governments for their emergency response to a mine spill that the EPA triggered, but the agency turned down $20.4 million in other requests for past and future expenses.

Ford Motor Co. is going ahead with plans to move small-car production from the U.S. to Mexico despite President-elect Donald Trump’s recent threats to impose tariffs on companies that move work abroad.